Written by Craig Larman
Craig Larman's Agile & Iterative Development A Manager's Guide provides an excellent introduction to agile development, four major agile development methodologies (XP, Scrum, EVO, and UP) and the practices and work products of each methodology. Larman also explains why (or why not) an organization would be motivated to adopt agile development, and details the research claims supporting agile's promised capability to deliver. The chapter on practice tips goes over each core discipline (project management, requirements, project tools and environment, and testing) and recommends agile practices you may choose to adopt. Larman also outlines the value of each practice and, where possible, lists the methodology (Scrum, XP, etc.) that introduced or emphasizes the practice. In setting up the problem to be solved, software development is presented as an inventive process that does not fit well with techniques borrowed from industrial process control. There is too much uncertainty brought about by necessarily incomplete requirements, new (at least the development team) APIs, and tasks discovered late. Say goodbye to your Gantt charts and MS Project and hello to Excel and your burndown chart. Larman also explains how no one methodology is applicable in all situations. A six developer travel site would need a very different process and artifact set than a 60 developer aircraft control system. The Cockburn classification system is presented and the applicability of the various agile methodologies to each project type is given. This is very helpful when it comes to picking a methodology and specific practices to bring into your IT practice, allowing you to adjust to each projects size, complexity and level of acceptable risk. This book is a quick read covering a wide range, with plenty of pointers of where to look for more detail. It's a great place to start if you are considering bringing agile development into your organization or are gearing up to join an agile team.
Reviewed: 2007-06-26
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